


Out of Service

by TransientThoughts



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angel and demon talk through the telephone because it's the only way, Angst with a Happy Ending, Basically a rewrite of Good Omens, Crowley Was Raphael Before Falling (Good Omens), Developing Relationship, Dialogue Heavy, Eventual Fluff, Eventual Romance, Falling In Love, First Kiss, First Meetings, Heaven and Hell as soulless corporations, Humor, Ineffable Bureaucracy (Good Omens), Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Ineffable Idiots (Good Omens), M/M, Office AU, Office Supplies, Office-style AU, Repression, Romantic Comedy, Slow Burn, Soulmates, The Ineffable Plan (Good Omens), and a very unpunctual cleaning service, it will have a happy ending I swear to God, management training and useless motivational posters, wow isn't that a lot of tags
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-11
Updated: 2020-03-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:27:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22217029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TransientThoughts/pseuds/TransientThoughts
Summary: Employee number -42666901 and employee number 16777211 both work for a company in the same office building.They've had their jobs for almost six thousand years now, which is no small thing, and, with the exception of a few reprimands and minimal demotions, they'd both say their respective positions are quite stable.But in all those years, they have never crossed paths, never shared a coffee, never even exchanged anxious smiles when the printer stopped working. Whether this was due to the fact that one worked seventy floors Up and the other seventy floors Down is for anyone to tell.However, in a sudden twist of fate, an accident will put them both on the same page and, ever since there are records, an angel and a demon will talk for the very first time.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 35
Kudos: 73





	1. "Leaks"

This isn’t the story of a man, but rather, a man-shaped creature.

This man-shaped creature used to call himself Crowley, and he worked for a company in a big office building where he was employee number -42666901.

From the outside, it looked just like any other building. Seventy stories tall, a towering monolith of concrete, glass and steel; symmetric rows of windows on every floor, stacked one on top of the other like colourless construction blocks. The epitome of contemporary architecture. And, as any good piece of contemporary architecture, it was effectively invisible to the eye. No one thought twice about it as they bustled past in their day-to-day lives. No one ever stopped to give it a second glance. No one ever opened the door and tried to enter; no one even felt the curiosity to. It was simply another of the many same boring, lifeless, non-descript buildings crammed in yet another boring, lifeless, non-descript financial district and, as such, it arose no emotion other than sheer indifference.

In short, it was a chunk of high-rise cement that did nothing except add to the city skyline.

If someone were to go inside, however, they would only find, in an otherwise empty hall, a single set of escalators, outlined in fluorescent lights and accompanied by a perfect pair of inverted twins reflected on the porcelain black polished floor: one leading Up, and one leading Down. But, most probably, before they were even able to wonder what lay beyond them, a cordial, flawlessly dressed receptionist would appear out of the blue and politely show them their way out, muttering between a set of impeccably white teeth something along the lines of “you shouldn’t be here _yet_ ”.

The company had a very strict policy regarding new applicants, and those who knew the firm, were perfectly aware of how exclusive and inaccessible it was. There were no job advertisements in newspapers or job portals for the company; it had no network contacts on LinkedIn nor recruiters on Info-Jobs; not even a note on the front glass door in big scrabbly letters that said ‘WE’RE HIRING’.[1] Job interviews, in fact, had not been allowed for centuries. And yet, odd as it may seem, every department was full of workers, sweaty and stressed under an unending pile of work.[2]

How had, then, employee number -42666901 got his job (a permanent contract, no less)?

Well, the answer is simple: he hadn’t.

He hadn’t applied for a position in the company; he hadn’t even sent a digital copy of his CV, and he most certainly didn’t have a recommendation letter. No one did. Employees like him were recruited (although ‘recruit’ is not the most accurate term) on the basis of four simple requirements: _unforgivable, irredeemable, incorrigible and irreparable._

No previous qualification needed.

Needless to say, Crowley fit these prerequisites perfectly. And just like that, sometime six thousand years ago, he had become part of one of the most successful, horribly prestigious firms in the known universe: _Hell_.

But Hell is none of the nine circles of torment full of flames, pus, blood, tears and screaming souls that Dante wrote about; no pitchforks, and certainly no flames[3]. Employee number -42666901’s job was, in fact, nothing out of the ordinary: he sat at his desk in room -42666901 and transcribed reports of a, let’s say, _dubious_ nature. Orders came to him through an intercom attached to the wall, blank and cracked, which came directly from the higher-ups (or the lower-downs, depends on how you look at it. It was rather confusing, really: one could never be sure how hierarchy worked Below). Anyway, employee number -42666901 received orders directly from the Seven Dukes of Hell, which is the closest to Head Office one could get these days. Not that he’d want to, though.

It would be very difficult to say with accuracy what Crowley’s profession was (his bosses had given it a name a long time ago, but it contained more consonants than vowels, and he had forgotten about it the next minute): teller? Clerk? Accountant? Consultant? Secretary? Assistant? Possibly all of them. The only thing he knew for sure is that he was the lowest of the low (or the highest of Below, that damned hierarchy again), and that the job description sounded much more thrilling in paper than it did in practice. As read in the introductory leaflet, his job involved recording the demonic activity of the several field agents stationed on God’s latest creation: Earth. A temptation here, some adultery there, greed, egoism, violence, perversion, cruelty, vengeance, genocide, massacres, and some murders on the side. Now, _that_ was exciting!

Reality was, however, that Crowley had been printing and filling out the same template sheet for nearly a decade now. The report belonged to a very dim-witted demon, agent number -13313000 on official terms, but who had adopted Hastur as his earthly name. The agent in question had a special predilection for whispering, hissing, and murmuring as his main tool at the service of sin. For the past nine and a half years, he had been talking into the ear of a poor priest, trying to put Doubt into his mind every time a young woman passed him by and the white skin of her ankle showed by accident.

So far, no success. 

And in the meantime, Crowley was just there, sat at his desk in room -42666901, printing, filling, signing, stacking papers, pushing the button on the intercom on the wall and making calls probably no one would answer. This is what employee number -42666901 did every day, of every week, of every month, of every year, of every decade, of every century.

It is only natural, then, after all that time, that employee number -42666901 had grown bored of it all. He complained, of course[4]: he used to say his job was tedious, dull, monotone, repetitive, and, on memorable occasions, he referred to it with the term ‘mundane’. But mundane is a word that comes from the Old French _mondain_ , which comes from the Latin _mundus_ , which is the equivalent for the Greek _kosmos_ , meaning ‘belonging to the world and the universe’. A shame, really, because it was a word that could only be applied to Earth. If Crowley had known what ‘mundane’ truly meant (unfortunately for him, he was familiar with neither Greek nor Latin), he would have probably found the term ‘hellish’ a lot more fitting.

He had grown bored of his job’s _hellish_ routine, of its _hellish_ insipidity and its _hellish_ stagnation. He had grown bored of being called employee number -42666901, so he had started to refer to himself as Crowley. The name hadn’t made an impression among his co-workers, who still called him by his employee number, so, as a result, alone and frustrated, during the occasional breaks[5], he kept trying to come up with names, each one more elaborate and more difficult to pronounce than the last. He liked to imagine how it’d be to have his own business card, with several capital letters and a fancy surname, all perfectly printed in a beautiful font like _Comic Sans_ _._

But imagination was, to put it mildly, not well looked upon in his department[6] and, whenever his reports showed a bit more creativity than strictly necessary, he received the most dreadful glare (or the most dreadful roar, if it was through the intercom) and, not even a second after, an atrocious burning sensation would go through his entire body, worse than any heartburn ever experienced Above or Below. Then, as a punishment, he was forced to debase himself to even more menial tasks. 

So when Beelzebub, Lord of Flies, Second Duke of Hell and Head of Records Department, entered in room -42666901 and saw a scrabbled note under Crowley’s paperwork with the names ‘James’ ‘Jackson’ and ‘Jonathan’ crossed out, Crowley felt the bite of an electric shock run from the tip of his fingers and up his spine, and before the door closed with a thunderous slam, he had been ordered to fix a leak that had appeared in the middle of the ceiling of the meeting room.

Now, one might think that leaks wouldn’t be too much of a problem in Hell, but this fact needs further clarification. While leaks on Earth usually let escape water or gas, Below, leaks filtrated a much more dangerous substance: [H2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton)[SO4](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulfate) or, for those not acquainted with the technical jargon, _sulphuric acid_. This particular leak Beelzebub had mentioned, had started dripping from the meeting room ceiling, and it had already seeped through the table, the carpet, the next four floors down and one unfortunate demon who had happened to be standing right under. That’s the kind of leaks one got Down There.

Crowley, however, knew nothing about fixing leaks of sulphuric acid. Fixing had never been his forte; to tell the truth, no one in Hell was good at _fixing_ things. You know, destructive forces and all that. That’s why a repair service had been specifically hired for occasions quite like this one. They were external; they outsource that kind of thing these days. Downside was, they were _never_ around when you needed them.

Without further consideration, Crowley got up from his desk with a jerk, the sting of electricity still tickling his fingertips. In a very unceremonious manner, teeth clenched, he took a particularly thick binder from the nearest shelf and carelessly threw it against the table. As a result, the binder burst into a cloud of paper sheets and archive notes, which started flying all over the room. Crowley had no time for this: with a swift turn of his wrist, all the papers stopped mid-air, frozen in time, hanging from points in space like ripe fruit. 

Somewhere among the branches of this peculiar tree, was suspended a tiny piece of yellowed paper and ink so smudged it would need a miracle to read it. Five long, slender fingers reached out and picked it up. Crowley took the note and brought it to his eyes, squinting. Cursing under his breath, he trotted towards the telephone and grabbed the receiver; he dialled thoughtlessly, practically stumbling over the numbers. Then he looked back at the office door and stuck out his tongue, as if to mock his boss, and waited for the line to answer.

“Hi, I’m calling because of the leaks,” he said promptly, heedless of whether or not there was someone listening. He was not in the mood for unnecessary niceties and courtesy formulas.

“Uh—hello,” a voice said from the other side.

Odd. Surprising, rather, that his call had been picked up so fast—normally they wouldn’t answer the first time, or the second one; normally, they wouldn’t answer _at all._

The voice sounded somewhat startled, as if he was in the middle of a most interesting conversation and he’d lost his train of thought.

The question must have left him in a state of utter confusion, for he continued. “I beg your pardon, what leaks?” in a tone that nevertheless sounded soft and clear, like the ringing of a bell, except Crowley had never heard the ringing of a bell.

“Leaks,” the demon repeated. “Awful, big dark stains of some liquid I’d rather not describe, dripping from the ceiling right onto my bosses’ heads. _Leaks_.”

As if leaks needed some kind of clarification.

“Oh, right!” the voice squeaked, in a moment of sudden realization. “Leaks. Of course. Used to have them all the time. Terribly annoying, really.”

“Yeah,” Crowley continued. “So, obviously ought to get it fixed as soon as possible. Do you know where the guy—janitor, plumber, _whoever_ it is that fixes these sort of things—is?”

“Ah, the plumber. Well, to be fair, he hasn’t been around for a while. Not that _I_ have seen him, that’s for sure.”

The demon rolled his eyes back into his skull, muttering. “Where is repair service when you need them?”

“No idea, I’m afraid,” the voice replied, seemingly oblivious to the concept of rhetoric questions. “Hmmm, I might have to—hang on a second, I’ll look through the files,”

“Go ahead,” Crowley gestured, as if giving him free way, forgetting for a moment that only sound could be transmitted through the telephone. What ensued on the other line was the opening of books and rustling of paper sheets and—was the voice _humming_?

“There he is!” the soft-spoken being exclaimed at last. “Ah, Jim! Good old Jim, I remember him now. Oh. Wait. _Oh_. Oh, dear. It says: deceased—seventy years ago. Drowned in—sulphur.”

Crowley let out a tired sigh. “Classic,”

“Oh, uh… It seems—it seems they switched companies after the _incident._ Now it’s Habakkuk&Lamech apparently,”

“How in Heaven do you spell _that_?” snapped the demon.

“Oh, right. If you have pencil and paper, I can spell it for you,” offered the voice. “It’s Z-”

Crowley wasn’t fast enough. He tried to balance the receiver on his shoulder and hastily reach for the pen holder, with such luck that—

“Shit!”

Suddenly his shirt, his pants were burning.

“W-what was that? Oh dear, are you alright?”

“Yeah, just… coffee,” the demon clarified, stifling a cry. “Ssspilled a bit. What a mess…”

A _bit_ would be an understatement; he had poured a 200° infernal hot medium black coffee in a plastic cup right over the paperwork on his desk and, by extension, over his shirt and trousers. His voice had suddenly gone muffled and raspy, as he tried to salvage what he could of the unfinished reports and half-baked drafts while clumsily wiping his pants, and it didn’t go unnoticed to the voice on the other side, for he said: “You sound like you’ve had a rough day,”

“Well—won’t deny that. Week’s been the worst of the century, believe me,”

“Trouble with the bosses?”

“Yeah, the fat-cats. Always breathing on your neck. There’s just never a right time for them. _Rewrite the last three hundred reports and come back again later_.” he added in a somewhat mocking tone.

“As if I wouldn’t know,” the voice agreed. “They have me running around from place to place, only to send me back right to where I started,”

“Right?” Crowley exclaimed. “It’s as if they want you to believe you’re on this urgent, terribly crucial task, and when you’re done, you don’t even get a pat on the shoulder—the papers just _vanish_ in the air, like they never existed,”

“Tiny piece in the grand scheme of things; I think I can relate.”

“Grand scheme of things, right. Anyway… sorry about that, got a bit carried away. Back to the leaks?”

“Oh, don’t worry about that. I’ll have a look and I’ll send the plumber right to you. What office did you say was the leaky one?”

“Office, uhh…” he rummaged through the coffee-stained papers, until: “-154B,”

“Tip-top! One fifty fou—wait. Did you say _minus_?”

“Yeah,” Crowley replied. “I said _minus_ one fifty four B. Any problem?”

“B-but it can’t be,” the voice quivered. “That would mean you… you’re calling from Below,”

“Below?” the demon repeated. “What the—who the _hell_ am I talking to?”

“Principality Aziraphale,” said the voice.

“An _angel_?” Crowley’s eyes went wide with realization before dropping the receiver instantly, as if it had been set aflame by God Herself.

Then the line went dead.

***

[1] It had, though, as a matter of fact, a rather competent group of head-hunters.

[2] It was said that, in all the years of the company, not one single employee had ever been fired.

[3] Most of the time. Sometimes, restrooms were known to suddenly burst in flames, some sort of spontaneous combustion, due to unspecified reasons.

[4] Not like there was anybody to complain to, other than himself.

[5] Occasional, here meaning ‘non-existent’.

[6] Imagination was, in fact, frowned upon in all of Hell’s domains.


	2. "Monday"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's just another Monday

On Earth, time is relative. In Hell, time is distorted.

It’s neither like a flowing river nor like an irreversible arrow. It isn’t a measure of order, and it isn’t, as humans so often like to say, ‘what keeps everything from happening at once’. Down There, pretty much everything happened at once, mind you. If anyone were to look for a proper analogy, though, they’d probably be more inclined to say time in Hell was like a seesaw. Yes, a seesaw: always swaying, bouncing, bumping and never in equilibrium; it was always either too early or too late, and never the right time.

That doesn’t mean, however, that there were no clocks. Of course there were. Wall clocks were a fundamental element of the office space, as much as printers were, or binders or staplers or the many motivational posters plastered on the walls of every floor. Whether these items functioned the way they were supposed to was another matter entirely. Sometimes, the hour hand of the clock would jump from nine to four without further notice, and keep ticking the same number time and time again, without a hint of shame; there were times when the second hand would spin so fast its shape became fuzzy and blurry, and others when the minute hand could get stuck on ‘half past’ for entire months. It would have been foolish to even attempt to get some sense of chronology in Hell.

So let’s say, for the sake of brevity, that, for the _longest time_ , employee number -42666901 found himself unable to move, glued to the chair as though he had been sculpted sitting on it the very moment of Creation. Hands frozen upon the telephone receiver, hieratic, petrified, numb—dark glasses hanging from his aquiline nose in a position that defied every law of nature, more oblique than horizontal, and more vertical than oblique.

Crowley stared blankly ahead, and wondered: what _exactly_ had just happened?

But that wasn’t really a question, was it? It was most perfectly clear: he had contacted with the Other side, the Opposition, the Enemy. He had got in touch with an agent from _Upstairs_ —for Satan’s sake, he had talked to an angel! 

But what was worrying wasn’t the _what_ , but the _how:_ how had he, a low ranking demon—a working class evil-doer—been able to call an office more than seventy floors Up? As far as he was aware of, there were blocking procedures when it came to calls between Above and Below. Could that mean that he had somehow, in some inexplicable way, broken the code? Well, if he became the first hacker in Satan’s domains, he would get a commendation, that’s for sure—perhaps even a promotion! Oh, he could _already_ smell those freshly-printed business cards!

Or—he could get his own personal execution. 

And that was that. That sole thought put him off whatever scatologic ideas were crossing his inadequately creative mind.

_Begone, imagination!_

What the situation called for was an immediate ICP (Infernal Contingency Plan), which consisted of two vital procedures:

-Turning a blind eye.

-And a deaf ear.

Which he enacted without further delay.

Yes, it would definitely be for the best: act as if nothing happened, keep up with the now ruined paperwork, avoid any mention of the incident for the rest of eternity and pray that the conversation hadn’t been recorded[1]. That would do.

And so, employee number -42666901 performed the most representative act that he had pulled himself together: he took his sunglasses and put them right back on. 

Then he got back to work.

***

The reports had been reprinted and rewritten. It had taken two days of consecutive, uninterrupted work to get the forms refilled and conveniently placed in their corresponding binders. Employee number -42666901 had been relentlessly bent over his desk, elbows glued, aching wrist and unmoving gaze. And—he had also done a marvellous job at avoiding the subject of the _incident_ , skilfully pushing his thoughts aside, even when they came in with the force of a boulder spat by a tennis ball machine.

Until coffee break, that is.

There was only coffee in Hell, you see; It was both a beverage and a full meal. But it was neither a _mocha_ , nor a _frappé_ , nor an _expresso_ , nor a _macchiato_ nor a _cappuccino_. It would have also been misleading simply to call it _black_ , for, while it was true that it was black in colour, it certainly didn’t possess the characteristic aromatic profile of strong roasted notes and lingering taste on the palate coffee experts praise when they leave a Nespresso shop blissfully intoxicated. No. The liquid in question came straight from the boiler room[2] and had an intense taste of dust and ash, with faint notes of brimstone. It was light years away from the word ‘sophisticated’, and a thousand miles from being ‘tolerably decent’. And yet, every Monday, like a solemn ritual, each and every employee in Records Department crawled ominously out of their cubicles and gathered around the mangled, rusted device that was definitely _not_ deserving of the term ‘coffee-machine’, forming a horde that resembled more a bloated worm than a proper queue.

Employee number -42666901 stood at the front of this discontinuous line.

If it wasn’t for the fact that luck was an earthly concept invented by humans to explain a singular convergence of events caused by forces beyond their control[3], he would have called himself lucky. He had been fast enough to avoid the hellish throng that had beginning to form in the corridor, and managed to arrived first. A complacent half-smile spread across the demon’s he as pressed the only button on the device.

And right then, while the so-called coffee machine spurted the same glutinous, scalding liquid it had been spurting every day for the last six thousand years, he felt the distinctive burn of a reprimand rising up his stomach and running through his limbs.

A lump rose in his throat as he turned around, ever so slowly, only to see Beelzebub, Lord of Flies, Second Duke of Hell and Head of Records Department, standing stoically at the end of the queue.

To say that they were _glaring_ would have been a tremendous understatement.

Not a single word was needed.

Not even a second after, Crowley sauntered rather un-demonically out of the line, coffee forgotten, and hurried back to his office.

_Leaks, leaks, leaks, leaks, leaks, leaks, leaks, leaks, leaks, leaks._

Well, all be damned—who needs an Infernal Contingency Plan anyway? He has no other choice.

If only he had the faintest clue _how_ _the hell_ he had done it.

Feeling a wave of disbelief, Crowley swallowed the lump on his throat, his reptilian eyes searching desperately around the desk, until they came to halt at the sight of a tiny, practically shredded and seemingly harmless piece of paper. Ah, the note. The Note, capital letter. The disgraceful bastard that had started the catastrophe, triggered the apocalypse.

The demon raised the folded paper piece in the air and brought it closer to his tinted glasses. He squinted: no, it was a perfectly normal demonic number. Nine numbers plus a two-figure prefix, preceded by a—

No.

Could it be? Could it really be that simple?

Employee number -42666901 grabbed the receiver and pressed the ‘plus’ button on the keypad, then dialled the number. The telephone rang, once; twice. Until—

“Hello?” answered a voice—a voice so polite, so soft-spoken, mild-mannered, gentle, and so unbearably angelic that there was no doubt: the operation had been a success.

And he had only said ‘hello’.

Stunned, astonished, stupefied and utterly delighted with his discovery, Crowley put down the receiver and covered the end with his palm. He needed a breath[4].

Suddenly, something clicked in his mind, and he couldn’t help as the most devilish grin spread across his features.

_Imagination, welcome back._

“Hello, yes, is this the Principality Aziraphale?” said a high-pitched voice, in an accent so pompous, so disgustingly trivial and so obviously, unnecessarily fake that any person or being on this Earth and anywhere else could have only described it with one word: _posh_.

“That is correct, how can I be of-”

“Oh, I’m calling regarding the leaks in office _minus_ one fifty four B. They’re _terribly_ _annoying_ , you see,”

The angel cried out in recognition. “You!”

“Me? Who?”

“You! Y-you demon! Foul fiend!” he blurted, as if the most nasty, distasteful insults were still locked up somewhere in his throat.

The demon brought one dramatic hand to his chest, letting out a sonorous gasp that would have made any Jane Austen heroine jealous.

Oh, he sounded terribly offended.

“How’s that supposed to make me feel?”

“W-we shouldn’t be talking!” the stammering continued on the other side. “You shouldn’t even be able to reach this office! How— _how_ did you get this number?”

Unfortunately, posh façades can only last for so long, you see.

“I don’t know, I don’t know!” Crowley spat frankly. “I just—there was this note in some old records for customer service or some crap like that; I tried to dial the number on the note, might’ve gotten the wrong prefix—I have no idea!”

This was not entirely true: he had just realized which combination of buttons could make his call reach Upstairs—or, more precisely, a very fussy angel. The ultimate cause, however, as to why this was possible in the first place, still remained a mystery.

“Well, if you have _any_ idea of how dangerous this is, you better get the right prefix next time! Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll hang up,” For all the determination the angel put in his voice, it couldn’t possibly conceal a wobbly, underlying tremor.

Crowley couldn’t let the opportunity slip.

“Hey, hey hey—not so fast, _angel_. I may have made the mistake first, but now we’re both in this together and, if I recall properly, it was _you_ that promised to send repair service Downstairs. I’m warning you, I plan on keep calling this number time and time again until that damned plumber comes fix this leak!”

There was a long, pregnant silence.

“Oh… Fair,” the angel concluded, in a rather defeated tone.

“Fair?” Crowley echoed.

“Yes. Fair.” The other confirmed, before adding. “But once it’s fixed, we’re done. This is an act of deviation,”

“Maybe. But, the way I see it, this is simply an act of _communication_.”

“Communication with the Opposition!”

“Anyway, think of it this way: I’ll be in trouble if I don’t get someone to fix the leak soon—you’re helping me out. That’s it, an act of good faith! Isn’t that what your lot do? I thought angels were supposed to be helpful,”

“I guess…” The voice on the other side sounder terribly unsure. “Still, I don’t know what the higher-ups would think of helping the Enemy,”

“But it’s still _helping_! Listen, if you get me out of this one, I’ll be eternally grateful,”

“Grateful?”

“If a demon’s gratitude is worth anything…”

“Of course,”

“Besides, in any case, you could always say you were thwarting some evil spam calls-”

“Okay, okay! I’ll see what I can do. But I can’t promise you anything. They’re closed on Fridays, so it’ll have to wait until—”

“What do you mean ‘Friday’?” inquired Crowley.

“Friday, as in the fifth day of the week?”

The demon was dumbfounded. “The _fifth_?! Wait—just how many days do you have Up There?”

“Uh… seven, just like the Almighty intended,” the other admitted, as if seven-day weeks were a universally-accepted concept.

“Seven?! Are you kidding me?! Down Here we only have one and it’s always Monday!”

Was this some kind of joke?

“Oh, dear. It must be terribly inconvenient for keeping records.”

Crowley threw his hands in the air, outraged. His jaw dropped and wobbled, at a loss for words. “Uhh—maybe so!”

“That’s unfortunate,” continued the voice. “I guess you could always put a suggestion in the mailbox? Adding a Tuesday or a Wednesday, perhaps—for a better organization?”

“We don’t have any _suggestion boxes_ Down Here, angel. My bosses aren’t exactly fond of the idea of blokes down the ladder pointing out the flaws in the system, you know,”

“Oh. Then—perhaps you could suggest the _installation_ of a suggestion box, just in case,”

Crowley brought a free hand to his face, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Great. Perfect.” He whined. “The Guardian Angel of Suggestion Boxes. Good for you. Now, could you put me through with someone competent, please?”

He immediately regretted his choice of words. Someone _competent_? For Satan’s sake, is this what he wanted? More angels knowing about his desperate request? A celestial horde of Archangels chasing after him?

Luckily, the voice seemed stuck in the previous point of the conversation, for he countered. “I am not a _Guardian_ —I’m a Principality,”

“Yes, you made that fantastically clear from the very beginning, thank you,”

“What is your rank, if I may ask?” the angel said.

“What?”

“Rank. I’m a Principality. What are _you_?”

“Uh… We—we don’t have a lot of ranks here,”

The Principality seemed interested. “Is that so? But I was under the impression your side had a pretty strict hierarchy, starting with the Prince Dethroned and—”

“Yes, yes. Satan, Prince Dethroned, First Fallen Angel, and then the Dukes—but they’re only seven, and that’s it. The rest of us are just… _grinders_ ,”

“Oh. But what about the incubi and succubi?”

“We _don’t_ talk about those,”

“But, if I don’t know your rank—how am I to put you through with a relevant authority?”

The sole mention of the word ‘authority’ sent shivers down the demon’s spine. Shit. This was going out of hand, fast. He had found probably the most gullible angel in Heaven—he couldn’t risk having anybody else from Upstairs take his call.

“Nggk… You know what?” Crowley sputtered. “Changed my mind. Don’t put me through with anyone else. I’m sure you can figure this one out by yourself,”

“Okay then—I’ll do the best I can. Can I know your name at least?”

The demon considered it for a moment. This could be the turning point: the start of the extortion, the blackmail, the threats and, ultimately, the execution. On the other hand, the premise sounded awfully absurd: him, getting blackmailed by an angel who cared more about suggestion boxes than actual smiting? This should be the other way around, for Somebody’s sake! He already knew the angel’s name and rank, so it was only fair that he…

“It’s Crowley,”

You can’t have what you want without giving something in return. Or, in hellish terms, good old 'eye for an eye'.

“Crowley? Goodness, sounds familiar,”

“Hmmmm, I don’t think so,”

“Alright, I’ll see when repair service can pay a visit to your lot Down There. I’ll know by… Monday?”

Crowley chuckled dryly. “Sure. Anyway, nice to meet you—Aziraphale, Guardian Angel of Suggestion Boxes,”

“Pleased to meet you too, _grinder_ Crowley,” there was a hesitant pause. “Or… perhaps not. Hereditary enemies, after all,”

“Yeah, perhaps not,” he agreed.

And just like that, in that very moment, there was a shift; an insignificant, intangible change in the fabric of the universe, a fluctuation of entropy—a mistake, perhaps. But God has Her mysterious ways, and one can never be sure which errors are deliberate zigzags, purposeful meanders around the wrinkles of time—or simple miscalculations. After all, it’s Her Great Plan.

But as he put the receiver down, Crowley was left with the tingling sensation of a beginning, a newly open door; and he knew, as certain as tomorrow was Monday, that it wouldn’t be the last time he’d hear from the angel.

Something told him that he had fallen into the right hands. Not that he trusted him, of course.

[1] Not actual praying, of course. That would probably send him in a sudden combustion of holiness, and he’d be reduced to a puddle of demon goo in less than a second.

[2] You don’t want to venture in there, believe me.

[3] That is, Heaven and Hell.

[4] Not technically, of course, as there is no air in Hell, nor had demons been designed with a respiratory system for that matter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Crowley invented phone pranks, change my mind.
> 
> Posting the second chapter the eve of my birthday because why not. I wanted to deliver this baby already.
> 
> Hope you like it!


	3. "Windows Office"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What wouldn't Crowley give for an office with a view...

Graphic design is one of the most vital skills in a company. It’s an immensely broad field that encompasses the art of ingenious logos, appropriate fonts, external image, corporate identity, architecture and interiors, products and packaging, exhibitions and installations, websites, pamphlets, brochures, advertising and communications in general. It is a determining trait, and it has a double dimension: it defines the way one presents oneself and one’s product to the world, and also to one’s own employees.

Despite all the punishment, iniquity, suffering and restrooms in flames, Hell was still a company like any other. In fact, its industry was one of serious competitiveness, and in order to keep the firm on the forefront of the evil-doing business, one had to be willing to reinvent oneself. Of course, the creation of a branch devoted sorely to graphic design had been the natural step in this direction.

It must be noted here, that, not unlike other artistic careers, being a graphic designer is an extremely vocational job. Unfortunately, there was an acute lack of passion Down There: all growls and snarls and groans and limping feet. Yes, words like ‘vocation’ were undoubtedly better locked away in the drawer. But alas, if Head Office ordered a advertising campaign to motivate the lower-ranking employees, someone had to do it.

Now, Crowley didn’t know exactly where in the nine circles of Hell the Art Department was, but he knew for sure that, if he were to _ever_ set a foot in there, he would pulverize every single imbecile working there and set fire to the entire office.

Sure thing, the original aim may had been a morale boost, or ‘lifting up the spirits’ as humans like to say, but that was just the tip of the iceberg. Not like the fat-cats actually cared about _motivation_ in the least. Crowley knew this well. In fact, he remembered how, a few centuries prior, a demotivation policy was promulgated and immediately applied in all departments, with astonishing results: not one single smile in three hundred years; not even a twitch of the lips. After all, it would be a funny old world if demons spent eternity loving their jobs, wouldn’t it?

The ultimate goal of this more recent campaign, therefore, had less to do with morale and more with increasing productivity[1]. A classic. If he had to take a bet, Crowley would say it was probably Dagon’s idea. Such a debacle couldn’t be the brainchild of anyone but the Master of Madness, Under-Duke of the Seventh Torment. That was her title; she had it proudly engraved on an iron desk plate in her office, waxed it every week. And what could you expect from someone with such a reputation?

She had definitely outdone herself with this one. Needless to say, it would not go unnoticed by Head Office.

It had not gone unnoticed by one particular demon either, except for entirely different reasons. Where most of his bosses would probably see a job well done worthy of a commendation, he saw the crippling incompetency of a blunt and obtuse mind. In Crowley’s opinion, the final result had more in common with some sort of obscure new wave of avant-garde (Dadaist, or perhaps surrealist) experiments than it did with the actual demonic propaganda one would expect from Below.

He had been staring at it for three hours straight.

Colossal, gigantic, massive, monumental, _monstrous_ —covering the wide expanse of the (no longer) blank wall in front of his desk—was a black poster pasted with a thick, slimy substance; the striking red of the lettering stood out against the plain background, the words ingrained in his retina. Crowley thought to recognize the font as Papyrus.

It read as follows: ‘DO NOT FORGET: YOU ARE HERE FOREVER’.

Pretty unnecessary reminder if you asked him: five thousand and nine hundred years in the same office had given him little—if any—expectations of change. An air-less sigh escaped his lips: _forever_ was such a nasty term, he decided.

Dagon, Master of Madness, Under-Duke of the Seventh Torment and Head of Art Department would probably disagree. So much so, in fact, that she had had copies of the very same poster plastered on every office and cubicle, a shameless display of her own power for all demons to see. Oh, and that had only been the beginning. Soon, the main corridor became infested with similar bizarre messages, analogous copies, strange facsimiles of the freakish creature clinging to his front wall. Some varied in text and font, each one more incongruous than the last. This one, near the coffee-machine, said: ‘CLEAN AFTER YOURSELF: YOUR MOTHER DOESN’T WORK HERE. YOU DON’T HAVE A MOTHER’, while another, near the main reception, read: ‘THIS OFFICE HAS GONE (several numbers had been crossed out) [ 0 ] DAYS WITHOUT ANYONE SAYING: THE ROAD TO HELL IS PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONS’; then, blanketing both the ceiling and floor of the meeting rooms: ‘NEVER BE UP TO NO BAD’; around the cubicles: ‘RAISE AND GRIND’; and just about all over, everywhere and nowhere, in hundreds and hundreds of thousands of identical twins: ‘PLEASE, DO NOT LICK THE WALLS’.

It was all beyond Crowley’s understanding. The Art Department was definitely lost to meaning, sense and salvation.

But the posters remained, and they were a bloody plague. The demon must have been somewhere in the midst of these meditations when the telephone rang. It was clear that Crowley had forgot himself, and for a few seconds he just lingered there, transfixed, lost in contemplation, as if in trance; which upset the caller notably, for the ringing grew louder, more insistent, with a spark of urgency.

Finally, his right arm moved, as if of its own volition, ghosting over the receiver.

He picked it up.

“Habakkuk&Lamech,” a voice said on the other end.

But the words slid off him like water slides off… well, whatever it is water slides off of. In that very moment, the demon found himself drowning in the odd curves and angles of the Papyrus font.

“What?” was all he could mutter.

“I called them, Habakkuk&Lamech,” reiterated the caller. “Told them about an awful sulphur leak in office _minus_ fifty four B. They’re sending someone called Bob,” he added.

Finally, Crowley was broken from his reverie. “Ah, _angel_!” he exclaimed. “How convenient,”

“I want you to know—it wasn’t easy. I had to use a private number so that they couldn’t see I was calling from Upstairs. And my side is quite watchful when it comes to private calls…”

“Right. Right. Any idea when they’ll be Down Here?”

“I—I’m afraid not, Crowley. Didn’t mention the date,”

The demon sighed. “Never mind. It’ll probably be a Monday, anyways,”

“Oh, yes. I forgot about that,”

“Just hope that Bob bloke shows up before my boss decides to execute me,” the demon commented darkly.

“Oh, don’t be so glum,”

“You think I’m being _glum_?”

“Well, perhaps not glum,” the angel corrected. “You just sound—dispirited,”

“Dispirited is my lot’s default,”

“You know what always cheers me up? Motivation Programs. Actually, I could recommend you a handful of our latest. You see, my side has a wide range of Performance Improvement Plans. They’re very effective,”

Once again, the demon fixed his gaze on the heinous poster on the wall.

“Tell me about it,”

“You should try one sometime,” Aziraphale suggested naively.

That was the last thing he needed.

“Yeah—sure! Anytime, angel.” Crowley gestured vaguely, as if to accompany his sardonic tone. “I’ll just—get the elevator and show up Above with a pitchfork, speaking in tongues and spiting fire,”

Aziraphale was probably about to make a remark on the various hazards of pitchforks and flames, but after ten seconds of hesitation, he seemed to realize his mistake.

“Oh. _Oh_ , my dear, I didn’t mean—”

Of course he didn’t mean it. Angels just weren’t made for irony; after all, salt and acid only existed Downstairs. And even demons seemed to unable to grasp it sometimes. Take the Art Department, for example. Employee number -42666901 gave another look at their grotesque brainchild and a wave of longing rose in his chest. He imagined a very different view: sunlight, perhaps clouds; he wouldn’t mind a tree or two, just a little bit of green. Ah, what wouldn’t he give for another scenery, a pleasant landscape. The Dukes definitely had a good one, no doubt about it. Surely, the _vistas_ came with the promotions. Every new century, Crowley promised himself he’d get a desk by the window. One day, he’d do something so bad—so abhorrently evil, so diabolically perverse—that they would have no choice but to give him a wonderfully spacious office with a fantastic oceanic view.

Only then—as if struck by a bolt of lighting—did he remember the confined condition of his workspace, seventy floors Down, and the permanent landscape of grimy walls and festering cracks full of Satan knows what. Needless to say, there was a despairing lack of windows.

Suddenly, it occurred to him that it might be different for those lucky enough to work above ground level. It couldn’t hurt to…

“Could I ask you something?” Crowley blurted.

“Of course,”

“Does it have a view?”

Confusion was evident in the angel’s voice.

“How do you mean?”

“Your office,” he clarified. “Does it have a window, a view?”

“Oh—I’m afraid not. Only the main hall has windows…”

Crowley frowned. “What—really? What kind of dump is Heaven if you don’t have _any_ windows in your office?”

Again, the rhetorical question fell flat to the principality, lost in a sea of telephone wire, and he countered with a most convenient answer.

“It was a _thoroughly_ _meditated_ decision. For a start, it avoids unnecessary distractions. _And_ it’s meant to help us concentrate in our—”

“Who the hell decided that?” snapped Crowley.

“The Almighty, of course. She wrote: _and the Heavens shall only have one grand window of nacre and glass, which will overlook all the marvels of the world, for the rejoice of the virtuous and the righteous,_ ”

It was a concise and melodious recitation, without a trace of vacillation, as though he had the scriptures right in front of him. For some reason, Crowley felt that he didn’t.

“You mean She took the trouble to write _that_?” The demon arched an eyebrow with scepticism.

“Yes!” Aziraphale beamed, sounding tremendously proud. “As a matter of fact, She wrote each of our Community Rules, word by word.” Then, as if to make a point, he added: “It’s all part of the Great Plan,”

Crowley rolled his eyes, in the corner of his mouth the beginning of a mischievous grin.

“Oh, you _don’t_ _say_ ,”

“Everything is written,”

“Even the End of Times?”

“ _Especially_ the End of Times,” the angel remarked with a hint of smugness.

“Well, to be honest with you, that comes as a bit of a shock, because I work in Records Department, you know?” commented Crowley, all too casually. “I’ve seen the Infernal Archives concerning Armageddon and, let me tell you—it doesn’t look too good for _your_ _side_ ,”

Aziraphale brushed it off. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, and in the sudden need of a solid refutation, acquired a rather defensive tone, although it didn’t sound half as menacing. “It is written: _and they assembled them on the great day of God the Almighty, at the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon, for the last battle. And there came flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, and a violent earthquake, and the forces of the Beast failed at last to persist before the celestial armies, and Heaven rose victorious,”_ he concluded in a grandiloquent manner, as if to lend weight to his moral argument.

“What? No, no, that—that’s bullshit!” the demon cried out, incredulous, and probably louder than he should have. “The End of Times will begin with the advent of the Antichrist, Destroyer of Kings, Great Beast, Spawn of Satan and whatnot—then he will gather the infernal armies at Megiddo and help us win the last battle!”

It was outrageous: how could Heaven and Hell have different records on the same matter? It was clear that the feeling was mutual, for there was a loud, affronted gasp on the other side.

“How dare you even suggest something so _ludicrous_? There must be an error—your archives are most certainly faulty and unreliable! Shouldn’t surprise me, though, coming from _your side_ …”

Crowley shook his head, feeling that the argument was starting to get too big for him, and deeming it completely pointless. And then, not for the first time, he wished he could just vanish, disappear—not in the way demons vanished when they were executed, their essences extinguished and their beings evaporated—but simply to exist somewhere else. Somewhere outside Creation, an alternative dimension, as it were: an infinitesimal, remote crevice in the universe left out of all plans and reports and archives and records, unknown to any object or being, from Above or Below.

But that was the problem, wasn’t it? There was no such thing: non-existence was empty, and every corner of Creation was under Her domain.

“Whatever,” he said languidly. “Not a big fan of battles, myself. If it were up to me, there’d be no War at all. Confusion, utter destruction, unemployment everywhere… awfully inconvenient. Whatever the outcome, in no time, I’m sure we’d all be wishing we could go back to how things were before,”

What was the point of testing each other, anyway? The only compelling reason Crowley could think of to justify another War, capital letter, between their respective sides, would be to get the offices with the spectacular views. And if they didn’t even have _those_ …

There was a long pause on the other end, the static sound buzzing in his ear, and the demon wondered how far apart the thoughts of his angelic counterpart were from his own.

“Well, unemployment’s never good, is it?” Aziraphale sighed at last.

“No. Tragic thing, unemployment,”

“And the rest of us would be hopelessly overworked,” he continued. “Earth destroyed, the Final Judgement, sorting out the human souls…”

“Loads of paperwork,” Crowley added.

There was another long pause, and then another sigh. The angel’s voice sounded no longer sure, no longer proud—and for a split second, the demon could have sworn he sounded _doubtful_ …

“You know? The idea of winning the War should make me giddy with joy but, to be completely frank, I don’t find it half as heartening as my superiors do…”

Indeed, what a curious, curious answer.

“Uh-huh. Anyway, you get my point,”

“What point?”

“That having no windows in your office is a _crime!_ ” the demon exclaimed. “Geez, Heaven’s only gotten worse since I left…”

“Since you left,”

“Well—since I was _kicked out_ , technically speaking,”

It would be convenient to point out that the topic of the ensuing conversation was certainly _not_ Crowley’s cup of tea—or coffee, for that matter. It was rarely debated among demons and, if one had been working Below for long enough, it was not difficult to realize that there was an unwritten rule against its explicit mention. However, if there were any demons left with the faintest glimmer of dignity, Crowley was definitely one of them. So, if he had to address _the topic_ in any way, he preferred using the term ‘leaving’. It sounded far more respectable than ‘kicked out’ (and was better for his self-esteem).

“Wait—so you… do you remember what Heaven was like?”

“Wha—of course I remember! What kind of question is that?” Crowley was blubbering at this point. For a Monday that had started with plastered posters and psychedelic mottos, it was turning out to be a rather interesting day— _revelatory_ even. “It was all… white and huge, clouds everywhere and suchlike. Always too bright for my taste,” he added, wiggling his fingers in a pantomime of something that looked more like typing, or piano playing, and a lot less like clouds.

Indeed, the demon hadn’t forgotten about Heaven. But that had been six millennia ago, and the only images he could conjure in his mind were as vague as the gestures he made with his hand. No good to dwell on the memory, anyway.

“Ah, I must admit, we’ve had a few _renovations_ since then,” said the angel. “No more clouds, I’m afraid,”

“Shame,”

“In any case,” Aziraphale continued. “I find it extremely curious—I had been told that you demons were unable to recall anything before the Fall,”

Crowley scrunched up his nose. “The Fall?” he repeated. “Hang on a second, is that what they call it Upstairs? The _Fall_ , really?”

And there it was again, the goddamned recitations.

“ _And the Great Dragon was thrown down, who is called the Devil and Satan, deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down into Hell, and his angels were thrown down with Him_ ,”

“So dramatic,” teased the demon. “Do you really know _all that_ by heart?”

Aziraphale didn’t rise to it. “Well, if it isn’t the _Fall_ , what do you call it Down There?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t really fall,” Crowley explained—only, demons weren’t very good at giving explanations. “I just… sauntered vaguely _downwards_.”

“Oh,”

“Back in the day, they just kicked you down the stairs. As simple as that,”

“Good grief. That… that must’ve hurt,”

Oh, it did. It most definitely did.

“Well, not all of us were _kicked down_ ,” continued de demon. “Not Lucifer. No, sir, he took the elevator—the lucky bastard…”

“Lucifer,” Aziraphale mused. “It’s been a while since I last heard that name. How is he?” he asked, almost wistfully, as if the King of the Underworld, Prince Dethroned and First Fallen Angel was just an old college friend he used to go to the library with.

“I don’t know,” Crowley grimaced. “Doesn’t show up that much anymore,”

And he was immensely glad that He didn’t.

“He doesn’t _show up_?”

“Well, I’m not exactly close to Head Office, but rumour has it He delegated most of his functions to the Dukes,” he explained. “Got quite crossed when your lot claimed credit for some holy war—the cascades, or something like that…”

“The Crusades?”

“Yeah, whatever. What a waste of souls, that’s what He said. It was quiet for a while, after those. Not a word from Him ever since,”

“Oh. I see,” said Aziraphale.

“Well, fair’s fair,” declared the demon, slamming one hand against the desk. “Cards on the table. How’s Divine-Decision-Diva Up There?”

“Pardon?”

“The Paperwork Queen. Ruler of the cubicles. The Office Empress—Executive Mistress?”

No response.

“The Almighty.” he clarified.

He could practically hear as the pieces fell into place in the angel’s mind, as he uttered an _ah!_ in realization.

“So, She talks to your lot often? She too patronizing? Does She still give memos like the old times?”

“Oh, well—of course She does!” exclaimed Aziraphale firmly.

“She _does_?”

“Just a year ago, She awarded me with an employee recognition diploma. I have it right here, on the wall, immaculately framed,” The angel sounded all too exultant for his own good.

“An employee… recognition diploma,” Crowley echoed.

“Yes! Acknowledging my hard work, of course,”

“Wow. That must be… _gratifying_ , after all these years,”

“Yes, it rather is, thank you,”

“And, out of curiosity, what does it say, hmmm?” Crowley pried. “Something vague and general like ‘in recognition to your lasting loyalty and commitment’ with your name stamped in silver or gold or something like that?”

More than a response, the demon received a series of reluctant, incongruous noises from the other end.

“You do realize, they could be copying and pasting the same bloody diploma and then handing them indiscriminately to all other principalities just like that, right?”

“I can assure you that is not the case, dear,” Aziraphale guaranteed. “She wouldn’t do such a thing,”

“Anyway, seems I asked the wrong question. Let me paraphrase: does She talk directly to _you_?”

“Well—obviously not. She’s already busy as She is, the poor pet. But our system is infallible. As far as I’m concerned, we principalities get the orders from the Archangels, who get them from the Seraphim, who in turn get them from the Metatron, first-hand spokesperson, who gets the orders _directly_ from God Herself,”

“And don’t you think that,” Crowley pushed further. “Perhaps—and I’m just saying _perhaps_ —during the whole process, there might be a little bit of miscommunication? That something might be lost in the bureaucracy?”

“I told you, it’s _infallible_ ,”

“Not even _slightly misinterpreted_?”

“Unlike Hell, Heaven is flawless” Aziraphale was resolute. “And our communication system is no exception,”

Crowley snorted. “Really? So _infallible_ a demon from seventy floors Below can get your number just like that?”

It must be noted that, at this point, the demon was having the time of his life. And the angel’s timid stammering only added to his delight.

“Ah, um—well…”

Crowley laughed unabashedly. It was like the burst of a water pipe, a newly sprung leak—only not of sulphur, but rather, of something sweet and soft, without venom.

“You’re different,” he pointed out.

“I beg your pardon?”

“It’s fun to talk to you. You’re different,”

“Of course we are,” said Aziraphale. “We’re an angel and a demon, we’re on opposite sid—”

“No, I mean—for an _angel_ , you’re quite odd,”

The principality seemed to consider his words cautiously, before adding a comment of his own: “Well. For a demon, you are quite— _peculiar_ ,”

Crowley found the adjective more than flattering.

“Take it as a compliment, okay?”

“Will do,” assured the angel, sounding rather pleased. “I’ll let you know if repair service gives me the exact date and time,”

The demon tried to return to a more professional tone, and failed miserably.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’ll let you know if Bob pops by to fix the leak,”

And, with that peculiar exchange of compliments, each of them rang off. They probably went on about their to-do’s and carried on with the same ordinary routine. But something had already changed, and was just beginning to take form. That was undeniable, hard fact. How else could it have been explained that, despite three hundred years of enforcement of the demotivation policy, Crowley was smiling? It was by all means unacceptable: neither devilish, nor mischievous, nor cunning; it was gruesomely, disgustingly genuine, and it remained spread across his features long after the conversation ended.

Glancing one last time at the poster, the demon shook his head pensively, and thought without rancour that _forever_ had just taken a most interesting turn.

***

[1] That is to say, raising the number of souls secured for the Dark Master, Prince Dethroned and First Fallen Angel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this chapter turned out longer than expected. There was literally so much dialogue to fit in!
> 
> Also, if you want to see me struggling to put an unholy amount of quotes and references both to the show and book, please stay tuned.  
> Hope you enjoyed it! 
> 
> Bonus point if you got the Simpsons easter egg ;)


	4. "PowerPoint"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Printers are evil and fireworks are noisy.

The problem were the slides.

There were too few of them, he decided.

The demon turned the page and let out a huff of resignation. Employee number -42666901 might have had a pile of paperwork to do, fill, sign, stamp and hand in, but Crowley, on the other hand, had been doing research. The subject matter was simple: angels. Now, if you were to ask any other employee—any other soldier in the Legion of the Fallen—regardless of their rank or title, they would unequivocally tell you that they were doing it with tactic purposes: surveying the enemy lines, studying the adversary, analysing the strategies of the opponent, planning offensives, inspecting, evaluating, quantifying their strengths and weaknesses in order to set up the perfect trap, get the upper hand in the final confrontation, ready to pounce ruthless and mercilessly upon them at the right opportunity. In short, something that’s in the nature of every demon to do: plotting.

But not in Crowley’s.

He just wanted to know what principalities looked like.

Within the vast expanse of popular culture, it is not uncommon to see angels generally depicted as beautiful, flawless (albeit pale) humanoid creatures with white feathery wings, a halo and a linen robe; an image especially recurrent if you were to walk down any supermarket aisle under the label of ‘home decoration’ a 1st of November. Christian iconography differs only slightly from this portrait, adding a mystified expression upon their faces, but the essentials remain the same.

Once again, reality proves itself far more complex. Insofar as Crowley remembered, angels hadn’t had a distinct appearance before Time was created; it was only after the rebellion that things got more defined: angels and demons, the followers of the Almighty against the forces of Darkness. His memory being hazy and unreliable at best, he had had to resort to the archives. That was his field, after all. It couldn’t be that difficult.

It was. The only information he had managed to put together was scant, inconsistent and unhelpful in every possible way, and it all came from a single tattered book, which he had found in a most precarious condition, tucked away in an equally tattered backroom of the Adversaries section, and ravaged by something that were _definitely_ _not_ moths. There weren’t any records before the First War, and that didn’t exactly make things easier for Crowley. Options were limited, really. So he had no choice but to stick to that amalgam of shredded pages and faded ink, hoping that by some demonic miracle, the information he so desperately sought would suddenly spring into life, like in one of those silly children pop-up books.

As far as the back cover went, the book’s original purpose had been the _classification of angels_ , but in Crowley’s opinion, it was hardly more than another of Head Office's laughable attempts to sound acquainted and sententious in a matter they actually knew very little about. But they tried anyways: the first chapter was a warning was against one of the most dangerous adversaries, Archangel Michael, General in God’s army, who had been the one to throw the battalions of the Beast down to--well, Down; then, there was the Seraphim, with three great pairs of wings: one for flying, another for covering their faces, and the last two to cover their feet (they were, supposedly, very good singers as well); and the Cherubim, guardians of God’s kingdom, who were said to be, quite literally, eyes all over. All of them were tagged under a ‘KILL ON SIGHT’ label.

And that was that.

 _Really?,_ the demon had thought. Seriously? No sequel? No second volume? Not even a thin pamphlet on principalities? Honestly, what had the Research Department been doing for the past six thousand years?

Behind the tinted glasses, Crowley’s eyes scanned the pages uselessly. Everyone had a point where they crack, and his had just been hit with a spoon. Nerves tangled in a miserable knot, they had gotten the best of him, and he’d ended up flipping the pages with a deliberate lack of delicacy, paying no heed to the ones that ripped and fluttered soundlessly to the ground. Finally, he took the book by the spine and shook it so viciously most of its contents burst in a cloud of putrid dust. He had looked like an absolute lunatic, even by Hell’s standards. But it was perhaps the luck of the lunatics, for, among the wreck of disintegrated pages, he had found an ancient presentation of unknown origin with exactly _four_ slides:

  1. WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT THE OPPOSITION: PRINCIPALITIES.
  2. Principalities have only one pair of wings.
  3. Principalities are beings inclined to love.
  4. THANKS FOR WATCHING.



Now, wasn’t that helpful? You’re welcome, Research Department. You’re welcome. You’re welcome to do your bloody job for once and reporting more than vague, cheap and utterly irrelevant trivialities.

Crowley fumed and went back to his office, gritting his teeth.

He wouldn’t admit his defeat. He couldn’t. There had to be something else.

It was already unbearable as it was, having to listen to a disembodied voice without a clue about the appearance of the being on the other end. What kind of mental picture was he supposed to conjure? How was he to imagine him? A pale flue fire of goodwill? A glowing cloud of haze and holiness? Because, you know, a cluster of eyes and wings and feathers and blinding light was certainly not the most appealing prospect. It wasn’t like he was going to see him in person one day, or run into him in the corridor, or in the queue to the coffee machine, but wasn’t that all the more reason to want to know what the angel looked like? Did he have to maintain an ordinary appearance, like he did? Did he have two eyes, a nose and a mouth like him[1]? Did he wear a shirt and a tie and a tag with his employee number? Did he get coffee stains on his pants that no miracle could wash away?

He was growing restless. And what’s worse: the longer he thought about it, the more evident the exceptionality of his situation became. It had been a rather peculiar turn of events, hadn’t it? Unexpected call ends up in Heaven. Demon calls angel. Angel calls demon. Exchange a few words, replace the receiver, and now he is counting the minutes until the telephone comes to life again with a thunderous ring. Look at him: a respectable working-class demon from Records Department, melted into this pathetic, nervous wreck with no sense of responsibility. An unprecedented event in the company’s history, that’s what it was. Truly a singularity worth being put down in paper, just for the record. And _that_ was what made it all the more worrying.

He wondered how long it had been since two members of opposite sides had exchanged a non-threatening conversation. He wondered whether such a thing had _ever_ really happened. After all, angels and demons had never been exactly on good terms, had they? If, by the vicissitudes of fate, they happened to bump into each other, they weren’t going to simply shake hands and comment amiably _“wonderful weather we’re having, eh?”_ No. Back in the day, the only words that could be exchanged were swords, spears and gushes of hellfire and holy water, respectively; and Crowley was more than relieved to put those memories in a tiny black box, throwing away the key and then throwing the aforementioned box into the deepest pits of his mind.

Things hadn’t changed much since then. Political correctness had replaced the swords and the spears, but everyone knew it was just a temporary measure. They’d be back when the End Times began.

But it wasn’t political correctness that was driving Crowley. In fact, he had no idea what was driving him, what was fuelling this unusual fascination. Rather unorthodox, really, to be talking to an angel. But he supposed demons were meant to do unorthodox things after all, so he didn’t give it any more thought.

***

When the last report template form ran out, the demon got up and headed to the printer. Trying to match his co-worker’s mortifying stance, he dragged his feet through the secluded corridor, his lurking clumsy and clearly out of practice. He had never been too good at lurking. With a side glance, he noticed a new poster that read: ‘YOU DON’T MATTER’.

He kept on lurking.

Just above the printer, another uplifting message had been hung: ‘FOR MORE EFFICIENT SERVICE, JUST RIP YOUR OWN THROAT WITH A STAPLER’. Well, that wouldn’t be necessary. Sometimes it was just the toner cartridges that needed changing, that’s all. No need to be dramatic.

He was just lifting the cover of the scanner when a seemingly harmless fly landed lazily on the back of his hand.

Crowley froze. The ensuing angry buzzing filled him with an ill sense of foreboding.

“Employee number -42666901,” a voice said from behind.

He tried to swallow the lump on his throat, but failed miserably. Employee number -42666901 was about to turn around to face them, when two unexpected sets of bulky arms grabbed him by the shoulders. With the brute force only Hell was capable of enforcing, they bent his frame in an unnatural angle, practically squashing him against the printer. Next thing he knew, Crowley had his head trapped between the scanner glass and the lid. _Crack_. The increasing pressure on his temples threatened to break the tinted glass of his spectacles.

Well, this certainly was a new perspective.

“Do you know,” continued the voice, surrounded by a buzzing that grew more choleric by the minute. “How many floors our officeszz have?” finished Beelzebub, Lord of Flies, Second Duke of Hell and Head of Records Department.

Petrified, the low-ranking demon was too startled to attempt any sort of movement (assuming he would have been able to gather the courage to attempt to move, anyway). From the corner of his eye, he could see the grotesque and puckered features of the creatures holding him down. Really, the rotten flesh and the maggots were excessive. They looked like they could crush skulls the same way a child played with modelling clay, and mind you, Crowley was too fond of his skull for it to be turned into a mishmash of red playdough. He tried to focus on the question.

“E… ewenty,” he muttered, imprisoned between the maws of the scanner. He had meant to say ‘seventy’.

“Wrong,” said the Duke sternly. They must have been standing somewhere behind the pestilent henchmen, for he couldn’t see a trace of their figure, other than the flies that strayed occasionally from their master and hovered above the printer.

Crowley merely blinked, as he feared it would be his last chance to do it. Beelzebub cleared their throat. “Ever since laszt Monday,” they explained in an icy tone. “Hell counts with four additional floorsszz. And—how many doesszz that make?”

Employee number -42666901 was having an awful hard time trying to keep his eyeballs inside their sockets. All trace of rational thinking had long left him. To put it mildly, he simply was not in the mood for basic math. However, the Duke was.

“Answer me!” they roared.

“Ewenty-fow…?” replied the employee tentatively, feeling a set of needles piercing themselves into his neck. Had the printer suddenly grown _teeth_?

Despite his impeccable display of basic math skills, his superior didn’t seem any more pleased. They hummed coldly in affirmation and continued: “And do you know why, demon Crowley, we now have sszeventy-four office floors instead of zzeventy?”

“N-no,”

Stuttering demons didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in Hell, and yet, here he was, stuttering like no demon had ever stuttered before. The buzzing of the flies was now more like a legion of condemned souls, all screaming his name.

“BECAUSE THAT BLASSZTED LEAK IN MEETING ROOM MINUSSZ ONE FIFTY FOUR B HAS BEEN POURING SSZZULPHUR ON OUR HEADS FOR WAY TOO LONG!”

Ah, so that was it. Well. Fuck.

“Oh, deaw,” Crowley said. He had meant to say ‘oh, dear’, which, in hindsight, was probably a very inappropriate thing to say.

Like a scythe rising up in the air before meeting the convict’s neck, he felt the scanner coming to life, and he could not help but wonder how it would feel to be swallowed up by metal machinery and digested by printer bowels. He closed his eyes in anticipation. Instead, an innocuous beeping sound went off, and suddenly, a bar of white light started sliding back and forth across the scanner glass, picking up every detail of the demon’s constricted features, as though his face was just another report to be printed and handed out among his co-workers.

“IS THIS CLEAR, EMPLOYEE -42666901?” said the Lord of Flies, as the white light continued flashing. “THERE ARE PLENTY OF OTHER DEMONS WHO COULD REPLACE YOU AT A SNAP OF MY FINGERSSZ AND DO YOUR JOB IN HALF THE TIME. AS YOU KNOW, OUR PATIENCE IS LIMITED. IF YOU WANT TO KEEP YOUR POSITION, YOU BETTER SZZTART THINKING ABOUT FIXING THAT PIPE. IF NECESSARY— _YOURSELF_.” There was another beep, and Crowley could smell the fresh ink and the rustle of paper landing on the output tray. “OTHERWISE, I CAN ASSZZURE YOU: NO MATTER HOW RACKED WITH TORMENT, NO MATTER WHAT AGONIES THE LOWEST OF THE DAMNED ARE SSZUFFERING, _YOU_ WILL HAVE IT WORSE. AND BELIEVE ME, WHEN THAT HAPPENSS, YOU WILL WISH YOU HAD BEEN CREATED MORTAL.” The buzzing died away with the last word, a guttural howl from the innermost circle of Hell.

And just like that, it was over. The arms that had been twisted around his shoulders freed him, and the jaws of the scanner released their deadly hold on his head. He stumbled out of its maws and rubbed his neck, eyes searching furiously for the department chief. But when he turned around, they had already vanished.

“Yeah. Mortal,” grumbled Crowley. Reaching for the output tray, he held up the pathetic mechanical portrait of his squashed face. “My wish exactly,”

***

“Bob,” said a voice, somewhere seventy-four floors Below.

“Bob?” said another voice, somewhere seventy floors Above.

“Bob, bob, bob, bob-ob-bob-bob-ob-obbob-bob-ob-bob-bob,”

It sounded like a broken vinyl record, or like a bizarre telegraph message, but sadly, Aziraphale hadn’t been around when they were invented, so he simply thought the caller must have had a major speech impediment, and felt pity for whoever it was.

“I’m terribly sorry,” he offered politely. “But you must have gotten the wrong number,”

A good fall below, Crowley drummed his fingers incessantly, sharply, against the surface of his desk. “Oh, no! No, no, no! I’m quite positive this is the _right_ number, _Bob_!” he bristled.

“Ah, Crowley,” forgetting the previous speech impediment, the angel’s tone softened in realization, oblivious to his foul mood. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

The demon hissed bitterly. “You tell me,”

He took his suggestion very seriously. “Let me guess,” Aziraphale made a humming noise in concentration, not without his usual tint of cheerfulness. “Right. Repair service. So, has Bob popped by yet?”

A blazing spark flickered across Crowley’s tongue.

“NOT-A-SIGN-OF-HIM!” he roared, slamming both fists on the table.

Every report, log and paper in his office trembled in response; even the remnants of his shattered sunglasses fell to the floor, scattering shards in a million directions. If he had been a trifle more careless, he wouldn’t have been surprised to see his desk catching fire.

Oh, and this was wrong. This was so very wrong. He knew it. He had been waiting for this call, and now he was just too furious to put some effort into _not_ mucking things up. He hadn’t just started off on the wrong foot here, he had started off with every wrong foot on Earth, Heaven and every other supernatural dimension thereof. Crowley could feel the guilt starting to form at the pit of his stomach.

The employee seventy floors Above fell silent, and for a moment his infernal counterpart feared to have lost him forever.

“Oh, dear. How… how long has it been? A week?” the angel said unfazed.

Good. At least, that made one of them that wasn’t utterly terrified.

“A heavenly seven-day week or a week by Hell’s standards?!” snapped the other.

What ensued were the stammering noises of uncertainty, mingled with the static tone of telephone wire. It was the kind of uncertainty. He could imagine Aziraphale’s mouth opening, and closing, and probably opening again in a futile attempt to make sense of the situation. _If_ he had a mouth, that is.

“Bugger,” he blurted stiffly, and the word felt as out of practice as Crowley’s own lurking. Could angels even swear? “I, I… On behalf of my department, I can only offer my most sincere apologies. I don’t know what could’ve possibly gone wrong. This is a bit beyond my competencies, you see. But I’ll see to that.”

“You damn well better,” the demon muttered under his breath. “I don’t wanna have anything to do with a bloody printer ever again.”

“Pardon?”

“Nothing,”

Aziraphale sighed. “Goodness. I, err, I’ll make sure to take the matter in my own hands. As for now, well… I just hope it’s not too much of a problem,”

“It’s sulphur, angel. How would you be if you were in a meeting with the Dark Council and your skull _spontaneously_ started melting? Your eyeballs rolling off the table like marbles?”

“Well. I suppose sulphur doesn’t exactly make mould, does it?”

“No. It doesn’t,” assured Crowley. Then, just for good measure, as if to assert some kind of dominance (because that’s what demons did, after all), he added: “Listen, I got better things to do than keeping an eye on a lazy outsourced plumber with a monosyllabic, nondescript name like Bob, Tim or whatever. Is that clear?”

“Like what, for example?”

Employee number -42666901 hadn’t been prepared for that answer. “Huh?”

“You said you have better things to do than supervising lazy, outsourced plumbers,” insisted Aziraphale, much to his bewilderment. “What are those things, if I may ask?”

Now it was Crowley’s turn to gape hopelessly at the receiver. His mouth opened and shut, and this process repeated itself three or four times more.

“Oh, you want to know?” it had taken him some good thirty seconds and unimaginable amounts of brainpower to think of a response up to the expectations, and ten more seconds to readjust his tone so that he didn’t sound like he was grasping at straws[2]. “Why, of course, my good sir, your interest is most appreciated. Hold on a moment, let me grab this decade’s schedule… Ah! Let’s see: killing babies with-” he picked up a log sheet and read an entry at random. “ _algebra_.”

Archaic name. Convoluted. Imposing. Terrible. Yeah, that would do.

He riffled through a nearby pile of papers, in search of something whose pronunciation and meaning was at least as obscure as the former. “Encouraging humans to steal… _cattle_.” he added.

Bollocks. Wrong report. _Wrong report!_ He threw the form aside and rummaged hastily through another random pile of notes and papers. “Tempting priests to commit… _fireworks_.” he finished with special emphasis. “You know, usual demonic activity. How does that sound to you, angel?”

He tossed the last report over his shoulder with a vain gesture, and smirked contentedly.

Now, it would be useful to mention that employee number -42666901’s knowledge of human civilization could have equalled that of a ten-year old in a primary school math class: they may know how to sum, rest or even multiply, but none of those concepts would be even _remotely_ useful when arbitraging a trade deal on two different stock markets from a computer in Wall Street. His knowledge was reduced to the Seven Deadly Sins archive, which consisted mainly on cutty things and pointy objects: it was a highly detailed catalogue on the different and ever-so-intricate ways humans had discovered of harming, lying, abusing, tormenting, punishing and eventually killing each other; not without condemning themselves first, that is. Crowley knew, for example, what the ‘rack’ or the ‘brazen bull’ were, but he found it rather confusing, because occasionally some of the items, like the ‘chains’ or the ‘whip’, whose mention was so abundant in the ‘wrath’ section, also appeared under the category of ‘lust’, and he didn’t have the faintest clue why. Additionally, some bloke named Henry VIII appeared—and excelled—in every single category. Whoever it was that had secured the poor bastard’s soul must have got a fairly decent commendation for putting such bless— _cursed_ inspiration and into his mind (such a creative approach to decapitations, truly meritable).

“Hmmm. Fireworks, you say?” said Aziraphale thoughtfully.

“Diabolical. I know,” said employee number -42666901, with an ounce or two more of confidence than would have been advisable, for the angel prodded him further:

“Are you sure you fully understand the concept of ‘fireworks’?”

“Absolutely,” Crowley confirmed with conviction, in a tone that suggested that not only had he encouraged hundreds of priests to _commit_ fireworks, but that he had invented them in the first place as well.

“Ah, yes. But have you actually seen them?”

“Excuse me?”

“Have you ever _seen_ fireworks?”

In any case. To employee number -42666901, the Seven Deadly Sins archive didn’t make sense most of the time. The problem was, it didn’t mention the blue of the sky, with its countless hues, or the vivid green of grass, or the peaceful song of the leaves rocked against the breeze. No. No report, not a single entry had been spared for any of those. Which was odd because, to him, they were the most tantalizing things in the entire creation. Tantalizing memories. And, faded as they may be, their recollection had haunted Crowley for the past six thousand years. It was cruel, really. Living— _existing_ for long enough to see such vivid impression of the world outside slipping away between your fingers, wearing out like an old rag under the implacable command of time. And what he wouldn’t give to bring those memories to life again. What he wouldn’t give to see. _Truly_ _see_.

It was this that made him hesitate. Whatever conviction he might have had before, merely superficial as it already was, evaporated completely. Under vastly different circumstances, if it had been a different demon (perhaps Belial or Malphas), he would have snapped back and insisted that _yes, of course he had seen fireworks. Best invention since the Iron Maiden_. But right here and now, among the wreckage of papers and shattered tinted glass, receiver dangling from his hand, exposed and feeling the humiliating sting of ignorance, he had been left ridiculously impotent.

“Ngggk…” Crowley grunted. “No! Okay! Okay! I may have not seen actual bloody _fireworks_ —but they are evil, aren’t they?”

Aziraphale differed. “I wouldn’t say exactly _evil_. Noisy, perhaps. I heard they make dogs terribly uncomfortable, though…”

“There you have it! _Dogs_! Diabolically evil, told you,” ninety percent of his brainpower used, it took Crowley another twenty seconds to process the implications of the angel’s words.

“Hang on—have _you_ seen fireworks?” the slitted pupils of his reptilian eyes sharpened in realization.

“A couple of times, yes. I was in China the first time I saw them. They were breathtakingly beautiful, filling the sky with-”

“Wait. Wait. Wait. You’ve been to Earth?”

“Yes,” said Aziraphale simply.

“So you’re… a field agent.”

“Not exactly.” he corrected. “They send me there every century or so, as a matter of fact. But the missions are always brief,”

The demon’s mouth looped into a perfect O, stupefied. But the capital letter didn’t last long on his visage, for his brows furrowed in suspicion.

“You’re not lying, are you?” he asked, just for good measure.

“Celestial beings cannot lie. It goes against our code of conduct. What kind of reputation would my company have if angels went around spreading false information?”

“Alright. Yeah. Right. Right.” Crowley brought a hand to his face, his mind rejecting the fact that he was being embarrassed by one dreadful, dangerous Adversary, who also happened to be a field agent and have very extensive knowledge on the practicalities of fireworks.

“So, when was the last time? Last time you visited Earth, I mean,” he managed to say.

“Hmmm… 1799, I believe.”

The gears in Crowley’s mind slowly clunked to life again. “Hold on—1799 of _what_?” he inquired. “Humans have existed for six thousand years. Why the hell is it _one thousand_ something? Do they not know how to count?”

“Ah, yes. That’s because of… the Gregorian calendar, if I recall properly,” explained the angel. “They measure historical time by the beginning of the fourth millennium,”

“But that’s discrimination! What about those born in the second millennium?”

“You see, something happened on that very date, that’s why. Because that year was…” he trailed off.

There was a long pause, and the demon had the feeling he should have filled it with something.

“Was… what?” he repeated.

“The year Jesus Christ was born, of course!” Aziraphale chimed.

“Oh,” the other mouthed, in deep thought. “ _Oh, yeah_! Remember the bloke. Didn’t know him personally, but he was a pain in the—well, a pain—I’ll tell you that. Infringed all of our protocols. I was rewriting paperwork for _decades_ after,”

The angel continued in a very reasonable tone. “So, it’s 1799 _after_ Jesus Christ was born,”

“Must have been quite a popular chap,” Crowley reflected.

“Though it wasn’t always that way, dear boy. Before the Gregorian, there was the Julian calendar, and before that one, the Alexandrian, the Egyptian, the Persian…” he rambled on without effort, formulating a verbal list of intricated names that would have left any respectable historian speechless and unemployed. The words flowed comfortably into Crowley’s receiver, with ease; which was good, in a way, because had the list been written down, it would have stretched down the table and made its way into the office corridor. Needless to say, none of this was registering in the demon’s already saturated mind.

“Uh-huh,”

“—and, they also have leap years,” added Aziraphale, with almost scientific precision.

“Leap years? What’s that?”

“Well, you see, humans are extremely observant. They realized their calendars weren’t synchronized with the natural astronomical cycles. Turns out, a revolution of the Earth around the Sun is not _exactly_ 365 days, but 365 and a bit more, so they compensate the mismatch by adding an extra day on their calendar, 29th February, every four years,”

“29th February,” echoed Crowley faintly.

“Although originally, of course, the Gregorian had 366 days, in order to stop the drift with respect to the equinoxes…” the words were overflowing, torrential, spilling from the telephone right into Crowley’s ear, and making their way out through the other. The list would be reaching the floor minus seventy-four of Hell by now.

The demon blinked in astonishment. And it wasn’t very often that he blinked.

“You’re a _nerd_ of the human world,” he declared.

Suddenly, the words stopped. The river abruptly dried, the current ceased as if someone had closed the tap, and Crowley found himself instantly missing it.

An unpleasant silence befell them.

“Oh,” said the angel at last, the ease and confidence drained from his tone, and replaced with a nervous stutter. “S-so I have been told, yes. I know I shouldn’t be exactly _proud_ of my familiarity with human knowledge, but I can’t help it. I know it’s ridiculous, _I_ _know_ —I always end up rambling nonsense like an old-”

Crowley hurried to clarify. “No, no. I didn’t mean it _that way_. It’s impressive, actually,”

Something between a scoff and a snort came through the receiver. “Well, say that to my co-workers. They’re not exactly _appreciative_ whenever I bring up the subject of the human world.”

“That’s because they’re bastards, the lot of them,” snapped the demon.

Whether it was conscious or unconsciously, Aziraphale ignored this last comment. “Most angels who have been on missions as field agents abhor the simple mention of it,”

“And why don’t you?”

“I-I don’t know. I just… How could I deem it anything but a blessing, being sent down to live amongst humans? How could I not love a creation of the Almighty?” he paused. “The Archangels insist that I should think of them as inferior beings, lesser pieces in the grand divine mechanism—blemished, flawed—but, to be honest, I find them extremely… fascinating, even in their imperfection.”

The term ‘imperfection’ was coined the moment Lucifer was cast down and thrown to the pit. Well. Not _thrown_. He took the elevator, after all. Anyhow. Up until that moment, there had only been A: an absolute, a maxim, a constant, a whole; an immutable state of things. Perfect, good, compassionate, forgiving; those were the only words Heaven needed. Oh, and the good servants of the Lord were so full of themselves—they didn’t even question it. What need was there for new words, if all that they were and knew already had a name? That’s just how angels were. But then there came B (or not-A, more like): the elevator and the stairs and the smiting and the killing. Loads of new words followed: im-perfect, un-good, un-compassionate, un-forgiving. All of them to refer to the newly sprung Opposition. Brand new vocabulary, antonyms; it was only natural. And somehow, by having someone to look down to, those Above only found reasons to reaffirm themselves in their own superiority. Bunch of arrogants, angels. Shame they didn’t know the term.

Now, an angel capable of appreciating the ‘im’s and the ‘un’s, the detestable prefixes in _imperfect_ and _unforgiving_ … That was unheard of. No. Not unheard of. Un-common. Un-usual. In-frequent. A-nomalous. Rare. New. Extraordinary. An exception among exceptions. And it had been Crowley, of all beings thereof, that had tumbled upon it.

What a curious, curious creature indeed.

“Tell me about them, then. I don’t mind you rambling,” offered the demon. He could feel his counterpart lightening up on the other end.

“Really?” said Aziraphale in disbelief.

Crowley softened. “Absolutely,”

This time, the angel’s voice trembled; not out of shame, but of hope. And oh, what a joy it was, to know it had been him, from more than a thousand feet Below, that had sparked it.

“Oh. Oh, my. Okay. Um—this is a bit, a bit unexpected, my dear. Would you be so kind as to remind me where I was?”

“1799?” provided Crowley helpfully.

“Oh, yes!” exclaimed Aziraphale. “It was absolutely delightful. Tremendous improvement from the previous century, if you ask my opinion. Back in the seventeenth, it was all plagues and pox and dreadful fevers. And don’t get me started on the throwing of filth from windows into the streets…”

“I assume Pestilence is still around?”

“Most definitely. They’re working all the hours that God sends, no pun intended. But things have got better lately. A doctor by the name of Jenner invented something called a ‘vaccine’. Some sort of inoculation—a medicine, so to speak, that prevents certain diseases from spreading. Truly revolutionary. And time passes so quickly—by now, I haven’t a single doubt they’ll have developed vaccines to cure every known and unknown sickness!”

The angel’s voice beamed with something akin to pride on the other end, and the demon wondered if Pestilence’s timid retreat had nothing to do with certain miraculous abilities.

“Was that your doing?” he asked.

“What?”

“Was that you?” said Crowley, and wiggled his fingers vaguely in the air. “Did you sparkle some _divine inspiration_ over that Jenner guy?”

“ _That_ is the best part!” Aziraphale remarked delightfully. “He thought it all up himself! No angelic intervention whatsoever! Isn’t it incredible? He may not even be aware of the millions of lives he’ll save, but his legacy will live on for centuries after he’s gone.”

Crowley hummed in contemplation. “Curious. I thought your side disapproved of science,”

As a matter of fact, ‘science’ in general terms appeared under the ‘pride’ category in the Seven Deadly Sins archive.

“Oh, that was a long time ago,” whimpered the angel.

The demon’s eyebrows raised with scepticism. “My friend Copernicus here would say otherwise, angel…”

“Listen: mistakes were made. That was a dark age for religion, and reflected poorly on Heaven’s core values.”

At this, Crowley had to chuckle. “Sure. Sure. So, business aside… do you, personally, favour human inventions of the, um, scientific kind?”

“As long as it serves for the greater good, yes,” said Aziraphale, without hesitation. “After all, it’s not called the Age of Enlightenment for anything…”

“ _Enlightenment_ ,” the other parroted, rolling the syllables with his tongue as if the word was a mountain range, a phonetic rollercoaster.

“The Age of Reason,”

Shifting in his chair, the demon scrunched up his nose. “A bit too bombastic for the Age of Reason, don’t you think?”

“I suppose. But humans are always down for pompous names,” said Aziraphale. “On my previous mission—previous previous mission—I had the, um, _displeasure_ to meet a very notorious man called Thou-Shalt-Not-Commit-Adultery-Pulsifer,”

Adultery? Had he really said adultery? The idea of a human being whose name was a constant and lifelong reminder to avoid carnal temptation amused Crowley beyond measure. The idea of a loving mother calling her son’s name with affection, or some children playing tag and yelling that six-word nightmare among the Jimmies and Johns and Jacks—amused him even more.

“Are you serious?” he said, face splitting into a manic grin.

“I am. And his siblings had no better luck: Covetousness Pulsifer, False-Witness Pulsifer…”

Oh. Oh, human ingenuity. What a gift. If Crowley had known about reverse psychology at the time, he would have been rolling on the floor with laughter.

“Hope they lived up to their names…”

“I very much doubt that they did. But, as Shakespeare said: “ _words without thoughts never to heaven go,”_ ”

Caught up in his own musings, Crowley burst into a guffaw. “Ha! Good one. Shake-spear. Couldn’t be more pompous if it tried,”

“Oh, no, no,” jumped Aziraphale suddenly. “None of that, dear boy. He was not… Why, have you really not heard of him? Well, yes, I suppose you haven’t. Oh, then this calls for a proper introduction,” he cleared his voice in preparation. “Let me present you… to one of the most gifted minds human history has ever known!” he exclaimed triumphantly. “Stratford-upon-Avon, born and raised. Acclaimed by the London public. _He_ was one of the greatest writers—if not, the _greatest_ , if I say so myself—not of an age, but of all times!”

“Writer,” said Crowley, not with disinterest, but certainly without enthusiasm. “Uh-huh,”

“Prose, poetry, theatre—he cultivated every literary medium. The Great Bard, the master of the word! Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, Othello, great tales of power and vengeance!”

Crowley frowned bitterly. “Sounds a bit… _gloomy_ ,”

Aziraphale let out a wistful sigh. “Ah. Unfortunately, the public thought that too. His tragedies never landed well with the audience…”

“Thought you said _greatest writer of all times_ ,” said the demon pointedly.

“Well, it’s not my fault people weren’t fond of the _gloomy_ ones, is it?” snapped the other. “It would’ve taken a _miracle_ to expand their tastes beyond the plain, blunt comedy…”

“Oh, come on. What’s so wrong with comedy? I like comedy. Good fun. Might’ve never seen one, but I’m sure they’re more fun than that Mac-let-beth King thingy,”

The angel sounded confused. “Is that so? I always thought you demons felt a natural inclination for the gloomy—the more… spooky stuff.”

“I’m all down for spooky. Big spooky fan, me,” said Crowley. “It’s just… gotten a bit old, you know? I’d like to hear something different,”

“Oh! In that case, I could read some passage for you—if you like. I believe this will be just the _perfect_ for the occasion. I must have a copy of _a Midsummer Night’s_ _Dream_ right over here…”

Something about that sentence felt terribly off, and demons had a particularly acute smell for that sort of wrongness.

“Hang on. How do you mean a ‘copy’?”

“My own signed copy, yes! I have all the first editions, all of them signed. Kept them in tip-top condition all these years. No easy task, believe me. But I _do_ take great pride in my collection, to tell you the tru-”

Suddenly, the world stopped, right on its axis. Well, perhaps not the whole world. Just an office, in a building. Perhaps, only, a head. A demonic head. In reality, what mattered was what was inside—a mind. But it hadn’t been spinning in the first place. In fact, it was just being set into motion, alive for the first time in six millennia.

“YOU _WHAT_?!”

Employee number -42666901’s consternation was beyond anything any demon had ever experienced, but then again, no other soldier of the Legions of the Damned had ever heard the words he had just heard. Crowley felt his jaw go slack.

“I… what?” said Aziraphale absently.

“YOU COLLECT HUMAN _BOOKS_?!”

The angel leaned hurriedly into the receiver and made a hushing noise, voice raspy with closeness. “Not so loud! Someone could hear you!”

So much for being careful, the demon thought, and erupted in a thundering cry. Beside him, the Vesuvius would have looked like a pitiful cheese fondue. “Are you _kidding_ me? You clandestinely collect books from the human world? Unbelievable! And I thought they were strict Up There! Ask for directions to the restroom once and they kick you downstairs! Six thousand years! Six thousand years and She’s gone soft! Who would’ve thought! Where’d all that smiting and punishing go?” he added wildly.

“Oh, they still do a fair amount of smiting, trust me,” muttered the angel, clutching the receiver to his chest, as if making sure no one was listening. “Archangels have eyes on their backs; they’d ki— _reprimand_ _me heavily_ if they knew,” he corrected clumsily.

Another piece slotted back into place. Oh, this was so awfully _fun_.

“Oh... Oh. Oh,” Crowley’s eyes widened impossibly, one step closer to realization. “ _Oh. Oh_. _I see. I see, now._ _I see._ So, this is a little secret of yours, isn’t it?”

“Well, when you put it that way…”

The demon lurched forward in his seat, elbows on the table. He was smiling like a snake. “You _naughty_ -”

“I assure you it’s all rather-” but Aziraphale’s efforts were futile.

“You’d be a Fallen, you know,” Crowley decided, chin resting against his palm. “Back in the old times.”

Wherever he was, seventy floors Above, Aziraphale was surely flustered.

“Don’t say those things,” he fumbled.

Crowley paused, trying to regain a breath he didn’t need nevertheless, and let the information sink in. Good Satan, it was downright preposterous. Simply impossible. How could Heaven ever allow such a _rabble-rousing_ angel in their firm? Worshipping words! How shameful it’d be if they knew—a _bookworm_ among God’s army! Then, out of curiosity rather than malice, he said: “Are you not afraid—that I might report you?”

“Should… should I be?” quavered the angel.

“Well, in any case I don’t plan to,” said Crowley guiltily. “As long as… you don’t report me either. I guess.”

“No, decidedly not.”

“Good.”

“Good.”

There was a silence. Someplace Above, and someplace Below, two beings slumped in their seats with a relieved sigh, receiver in hand. Only the static remained. It was not the silence of awkwardness, but it was not the silence of contentment either; not yet. It was, rather, the silence of a tacit understanding. Perhaps some of their superiors would have deemed it _conspiratorial_ , but why bother lying? They were too incompetent for that sort of thing anyway. What they had just reached was merely an agreement, a meeting point, a hesitant arrangement. Because it was too much fun simply to let it end.

Finally, the angel spoke: “Now, if you please, let us move on,” he cleared his throat, as if breaking from a reverie. “Actually, I think that’s been enough of me rambling for today. Cards on the table—am I right, my dear?”

“Okay. Fair’s fair,” Crowley grinned. “Your turn,”

“My turn: have you ever been? To Earth, I mean,”

Ah, fair’s fair. Why would an employee of Hell ever say that, anyway? Their company didn’t do _fair_. That was the problem with cards on the table—that the cards, or the tables, could be turned at any moment. And the wind was never in Crowley’s favour for long.

“Hmmm, no. No. Not really,” he replied, all too casually.

“Not really?”

“No. I mean. I mean, perhaps?” trailed off the demon, raising his free hand to idly scratch his head. “I was just… around. For a little while, anyway,”

Unfortunately, the obscureness of his response only fuelled the angel’s curiosity further. “Oh? Is that so? When was that, then?”

“Nnggh. Right… right at the Start, I think?” he said, as if the date of Earth’s creation was just another birthday of a distant relative one always forgot to send a postcard to.

“The Start? The very Beginning? This can’t be a coincidence, I was there too!” beamed Aziraphale openly. “You see, I was the Guardian of the Eastern Gate, back at Eden. I had been instructed to watch over the humans’ safety and welfare,”

Crowley stumbled for an answer, and ended up biting his tongue. “Good for you,”

“More precisely, I was on apple-tree duty,” continued the other. “Where were _you_?”

“Oh, I-I, nowhere, really… I was just hanging around—”

It had been exactly five thousand and nine hundred years since Crowley had first (and last) seen the hues of the sky, the vivid greens and the song of the leaves and the breeze. It had been five thousand and nine hundred years since he raised his gaze to the sun, sharp pupils and scaly skin, for at the time, he had not been walking, but crawling on its belly.

“Although,” reflected the angel carefully. “Now that I think about it, there were no demonic presences at Eden. Only…”

Crowley grimaced, immediately regretting his choice of words, but decided to finish the sentence in the most honest way possible. “—from a tree, probably…” even if it sent his dignity plummeting to the floor minus seventy-four.

“The Serpent!” cried Aziraphale.

“Nggk,”

“The Original Tempter! It was you!”

The demon flinched, hands twitching in something akin to shame. “S-sort of…”

“How do you mean ‘sort of’? The Serpent was the one that gave Eve the apple!” remarked the angel, as if refreshing his memory. “You tempted the first humans to sin! The original sin!”

Not mucking things up. Had that ever been a possibility? He was a demon—it’d be worrying if he didn’t muck things up.[3] And not for the first time, employee number -42666901 found himself cursing his own condition, the very nature that defined him.

“Mine was just a _harmless suggestion_ —they made the choice!” he said defensively. If this was going to turn into an argument, he might as well give his reasons.

“Harmless? They were cast out, for Heaven’s sake!”

“Hey, don’t blame it on me, angel! How was I supposed to know all that would come after? _‘Get up there and make some trouble’,_ that’s what they told me.”

“And some trouble you made,” agreed Aziraphale dryly. “They had everything they needed. They had paradise! And thanks to you, they were thrown out. Out into the harsh and unforgiving world, forced to fend for themselves.”

“I tell you, it was _their_ choice! If they had it all, well then—why would a simple apple tree draw their attention? They we curious, angel—inquisitive—and that had _nothing_ to do with me! Besides, if that blasted tree was _so_ forbidden, why put it in the garden, on plain sight? Why not on top of a high mountain? Or on the moon?”

On the other end, the voice stuttered, sounding utterly betrayed. “Oh, you—you wily old serpent! I should enact Celestial Protocol 50111. A. Section D. on you right now!”

“What on Earth is that supposed to mean?!”

“I should _smite you_ myself, right here on the spot! Even if it’s through a telephone wire!”

“Oh, yeah?” said Crowley. “Well, don’t let me stop you! Go ahead and _smite me_!”

The receiver sizzled furiously, and the demon feared it would melt in his hand in a matter of seconds. It didn’t. Perhaps the fact that it wasn’t made of plastic had something to do with it. The accusations ceased; they couldn’t see each other, but they had both stood up at some point in the last five minutes, limbs tingling with irritation. For just an instant, they seemed to consider the sudden turn of their conversation, how they had possibly come to this. But it didn’t last. Fear took hold.

“Y-you evil one!”

Then, without further ado, Aziraphale, Principality, Guardian of the Eastern Gate, Enemy, Adversary, field agent, book worm and firework specialist—dropped the line dead.

Down Below, two piles of unfinished reports caught fire in Crowley’s office.

[1] This semi-humanoid appearance was maintained in Hell merely as a matter of bureaucratic fluency. It saved a lot of trouble when handing out the physical corporations for field agents.

[2] Which, actually, he was.

[3] This was, of course, only true in general terms. Head office was obviously never glad to receive ‘mucked up’ reports.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FINALLY!  
> Holy cake, that took a lot longer than expected.  
> I may have just realized chapters are getting exponentially longer, but I guess that's just me writing dialogue.  
> I'm doing my best to keep on with this story, especially given the circumstances. For the past two weeks, things have been quite hectic in my country, but hey, quarantine can be a good period for writing (or at least that's what I tell myself). I can only hope to brighten your days a little bit if you're self-isolating as well.
> 
> Thank you for your support and all your comments, hope you still want to stick around to see the rest of the story!  
> Stay strong, and hope you enjoyed it! :)
> 
> ***I like to believe that, given that Crowley was never around to give in at Aziraphale's wishes, Shakespeare's tragedies never became popular. After all, it was his doing originally.  
> ***Any mention of Pestilence and/or viruses is merely incidental, I promise.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is the first fic I decide to post EVER, so I must confess I'm quite anxious, nervous and suchlike.  
> Anyway, skip the introductions.  
> When I first saw the show, I absolutely loved the idea of Heaven and Hell working like an office building: archangels and high-ranking demons as Head Office, and principalities and lower demons as field agents. I felt that there was so much potential in that sole idea, that one concept, so I decided to expand on that, explore the possibilities. What would have happened if Aziraphale and Crowley had never been sent to Earth as on the first place? What if they just worked in their respective offices, filling out paperwork? Would they still have met each other? Would they still fall in love? Would they still defy Heaven and Hell's rules?  
> This is my own answer to these questions. Basically a rewrite of the whole wonderful series that is Good Omens, focusing in the relationship of our favorite angel and demon. I was also heavily inspired by one of my all-time favorite videogames, The Stanley Parable (very indie-niche game, for those wondering), especially for the narration tone. I will try to keep it compact and ironic, similar to the book, but mostly I'll focus on dialogue, as it's extreeemely fun to write.  
> Can't say I'll finish this story, but it's my intention, as I already have everything half-baked (if only in my mind).  
> Positive feedback will keep me going!  
> Feel free to ask or suggest anything and, of course, enjoy!
> 
> ***I'm not a native english speaker, so please do tell me if there's some mispelling or something sounds weird. Also Habakkuk and Lamech were two ancient prophets, in case you were wondering. And last note: Beelzebub is one of the Princes of Hell, not Duke, apparently??? Well excuse me it's a Duke here because why not


End file.
